Population ageing and economic growth: The role of two demographic dividends in Japan

10.1163/ej.9789004154773.i-1199.340

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Chapter Summary

This chapter discusses the impact of falling fertility, rapid shifts in the age composition of the population, and unprecedented population ageing upon the Japanese economic system over the period 1950-2025. It examines two economic policy options available to twenty-first century Japan in coping with the formidable problems likely to be caused by these demographic developments. The two economic policy options are more effective utilization of the wealth of the elderly, and better utilization of healthy elderly workers and extension of the retirement age. After World War II, Japan's fertility decline was both the earliest to occur and the greatest in magnitude among all the industrialized nations. One of the important linkages between demographic transformations and economic growth is the role of demographic dividends in the process of economic development.